Monday, May 27, 2013

Last week Wednesday was the annual homeschool track and field meet. This is our 4th year participating and the boys always look forward to it. Usually we have pretty decent weather, but this year the was a bit rainy. It started out just dripping, but by the end, everyone was pretty wet.

We could only find one umbrella so Chris grabbed the beach umbrella, which came in very handy.

Joel is waiting to do the 50 yard dash.

Here he is running the 50 yard dash. Ignore the hysterical child. Aaron was petrified of the starting gun. Chris is in the red shirt at the start line helping out.

Here's Andrew running the 50 yard dash.

Unfortunately, Aaron had totally lost it by the time it was Noah's turn to run and I didn't get a video of him.

Noah waiting for his ribbon.

Joel, talking his leader's ear off.

Andrew. He wouldn't show me his ribbons because he said he didn't want to lose them.

7-8 frozen or fresh strawberries (add some ice if you use fresh)
1/2 a peeled orange
1/2 cup or so of fresh or canned pineapple
1 6 oz container of lime yogurt
1/2 cup or so of orange juice
1-2 T of steel cut oats (you can leave this out, we like the texture)

Monday, May 13, 2013

Babies are oh-so cute. The messes they can make on their adorable clothing, not so much.

This stain remover doesn't touch the stains. You know which ones I'm talking about. The ones that come right after a squirm and a loud explosion. This method works well if you take care of it immediately. But since I'm not so good about taking care of the mess right away, I had a pile of clothes that I had tossed in water and let sit for a day a few days (Ok, maybe it was more like a week, but who's counting?). Anyway, after using the method mentioned in the link above and washing them, I still had some stains in the clothing. Feeling very frustrated, I used every stain treatment I had researched. I had some Zout laying around so I sprayed that on the stains. Later, I rubbed Dawn, baking soda, and hydrogen peroxide into the remaining stain. I left the clothes on my drying rack over the weekend and washed them this morning and the stains are totally gone. Yay!

Mix all the above ingredients together. Bake at 350 in a 9x13 for 35-40 min or 2 round pans for 25-35 min.

If you use a 9x13, put the ganache on top of the cake, then the frosting. For the round pans, put the frosting in between the two layers and then the ganache on top.

Chocolate Ganache:

1 cup choc chips

1/4 cup butter

Melt together and let cool.

Frosting:

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups thawed whipped topping

12 crushed oreos

Mix cream cheese and sugar together and then fold in whippped topping and oreos.

I was trying to cut the sugar a little bit, so I skipped the chocolate chips in the batter and didn't put the ganache on. I baked it in 2 round pans and used reduced fat cream cheese, fat free sour cream, and fat free whipped topping. Could have probably subbed some unsweetened applesauce for some of the veg. oil. I crushed up a few extra oreos to sprinkle on top on the frosting. It was still really yummy!